Late Night Birthday Reflections

It's after midnight and I'm awake. The sad thing is I'm not awake with a crying baby. My babies are all soundly asleep and happy. I'm awake because I'm up thinking and worrying. So, basically I'm awake because I've turned into my mother.

Holynd had a wonderful birthday. My kids are still little, so they haven't had many birthdays, but their birthdays always make me reflect on me as a mom.

Hence the worrying.

Holynd celebrated her birthday with her bestest friend. We went to lunch and to Build-A-Bear. I will admit, I was a Build-A-Bear skeptic, but they do really make the whole experience somewhat special.

Kaydence gave Holynd a Sleeping Beauty dress for her birthday. Holynd loved it and asked to put in on right then. What parent could say no?!

Holynd dressed her bear up as a ballerina and named her Heart. My friend Nicole and I went back-and-forth between letting the girls dress their bears how ever they pleased or trying to talk them into something that would maybe be a little less.... well... Tacky???? Princessy??? Dumb??? (Nicole help!) In the end, we let them do whatever. The bears turned out cute regardless of our worries. (There was one point where Holynd wanted to dress the pink bear as Buzz Lightyear. VETO! If I'm paying that kind of money for a bear, it has to be cool to Holynd for more then 10 seconds.)

At the end of the bear building experience, they let Holynd ring the birthday bell and had everyone in the store say, "Happy Birthday Holynd!". She loved it. (Surprised?)

Afterward, I took Holynd out to help me find Pudee a blessing outfit. After a less then successful shopping attempt, I passed this sign:

It made me grin a little because I'm starting to feel that way. I think as parents we worry that everyone else is looking at us and thinking to themselves, "You're doing it wrong...".

Well, I'm here to say that I KNOW I'm doing it wrong. I have absolutely NO IDEA what I'm doing! When Holynd was a baby and something would happen, like a tantrum at the grocery store, I would figure out how to fix it and then make a mental note, 'when that happens again, I'll know what to do'. The truth is, it never works all the time and, more then likely, it won't work at all with the next child. I'm terrified to potty-train Sloane for this exact reason. Three children has made me realize that there's no universal way to parent! Some days I kinda wish there was! It would make my life a lot easier!

So here I sit. Biting my lip and worrying about all the other parents of the world because I know all their doing right now is thinking, "If she'd just get her act together her kids would turn out better".

The truth is, my kids would probably turn out better if I would just quit worrying about all the other parents of the world! I need to focus that energy elsewhere, but my goodness, that's a difficult task. If there's one thing I should be worrying about it's that my kids are going to turn into me because heaven knows that I've got all sorts of issues! I can't let a day go by without throwing a mini-temper tantrum or putting my foot in my mouth! Plus, don't you always feel like there are just some parents in the world that work really hard to keep all the skeletons in the closet??? Things are always just REALLY REALLY Hunky-dory great at their house??? Well, I'm calling a big ole' B!-S! to that! ;)

Raising little kids is hard enough without having to worry about who's pointing fingers, so here's my birthday promise to fellow bloggies. I don't think you need to get your act together. I think you are doing a wonderful job. If you do things differently then I do, I don't think your way is wrong, in fact, you're probably way closer to a solution then I am. Pick your battles. Love your kids and, for heaven's sake, don't blog after midnight. ;)

I started blogging because I wanted people to think that life at the Peterson household was perfect. When it dawned on me that my kids would one day be able to read this, I put a stop to that. I don't want them to think that I was a perfect parent. The perfect parent doesn't exist. All I want them to know was that we tried our best and that we loved them unconditionally.

(Husband, we should probably just start saving for the kids' therapy now.)